EP1237062B1 - Method and installation for order picking - Google Patents

Abstract

Order picking method for use in warehouses, etc. where an operator (6) selects order items from a list prior to delivery. The operator has a motorized collection vehicle (8) on which are placed order items as the vehicle moves between storage points (1-4). According to the invention the vehicle can be remotely controlled by the operator as he moves on foot between storage points. The invention also relates to a corresponding command module for use with the motorized collection vehicles. Vehicles are controlled with a portable communication device carried by an operator, using for example a speech recognition module. Each portable device will only with the vehicle assigned to the operator.

Description

The present invention relates to the preparation of orders in the warehouses of distribution centers or sales. It is a question of collecting and transporting to a designated place at the exit of a warehouse where they are stored for delivery, articles ordered by points of sale of a commercial network or by buyers, in particular in the case of mail order or e-commerce.

In the current warehouses of the type in which the invention is concerned, an order-picking operator must gather, for example to a delivery truck, articles the number and nature of which are entered on a specific order list to the order being prepared. It has for this purpose a motorized handling equipment, such as an electric pallet transport trolley or other containers, on which it collects the articles that by referring to said list, it draws in respective storage locations in the warehouse. The journey through the warehouse to browse the storage locations may be imposed on the operator with each list, in order to save time by establishing an appropriate sequence in the sequence of locations to serve which he will have to stop for take one or more items, in order to better coordinate the movements in the same warehouse of various operators having at the same time to prepare respective orders responding to different lists.

The knowledge of the prior art to the present invention in this field are illustrated, for example, in the international patent application WO 98/00819, which describes a method for preparing orders according to which it is assembled, on a motorized handling equipment used to transporting them, different items stored in a warehouse, the items being taken from storage locations of the warehouse according to a predetermined order list and loaded onto the machine by a trader operator.

The document provides means to facilitate the operator who drives the handling equipment knowledge at each step essential data for the next step, such as the destination location or direction to be reached, communicated to it from a central warehouse management station, by displaying on distributed screens in the warehouse. Nevertheless, following this precedent, the operator uses the motorized machine assigned to him to move himself from one location to another by transporting the items as and when he brings them together.

Now at the origin of the invention, there have been observed significant time losses which increase the rate of preparation of orders. The present invention therefore aims to ensure a better saving of time, therefore of cost, while preserving the individual autonomy of the operators, with the advantages which derive therefrom. By this, it lends itself particularly well to the cases of application to the preparation of orders that may involve a limited number of items in locations scattered throughout an extended warehouse. It is also of great interest for complex installations where multiple operators work at the same time, in the same warehouse, on orders of different compositions.

According to the invention, the order preparation method has the features which are indicated in claim 1 and / or those indicated in claim 4, each advantageously completed by the dependent claims. The invention is also expressed in an installation as defined by claim 10, advantageously completed by claims 11 and / or 12.

The present invention thus significantly reduces the movements of each operator and simplify the maneuvers he has to perform. This results in a decrease in the duration of each order preparation by each operator, since it, at each stage of his journey, is dispensed at least the journey he had to go before empty (without wearing an article) on arrival in the location, to leave his gear and go take a first article. It also results in a reduction in the risk of accidents affecting the health of operators or more benign incidents, but nevertheless disturbing the operation of the entire installation. In particular, the operators no longer have to go up and down from a driving position to control their machines.

In addition, while it is common in practice that the tractors constituting the handling equipment can never reach the immediate vicinity of the place where the items of the order are located in each storage location, it is common also that such carriages are guided on an imposed course, necessarily being away from precise storage locations, the implementation of the invention has the consequence that each operator can freely choose his path, the shortest of from one location to another, without having to comply with the journey of his handling equipment. At the very least, one of the journeys from the machine to the location at each station is avoided.

Finally, an economy, which to be less is not necessarily necessarily negligible, results from the fact that each determined operator no longer has to go to the driving position of his cart after depositing a last item taken from the location in progress on a pallet or other equivalent container located in a trailer of the trolley. In practice, once a location has been completely served, by taking all the items of the particular order in this location and loading on the machine, the operator can immediately control the movement of the machine to the following location to serve. During this movement of his machine, he moves himself to this next location to serve, where he goes directly on foot to be ready to load one or items to take it.

It is therefore advantageous, if it is not variable and freely chosen by each operator, that the speed of the machines handling in circulation in an installation according to the invention is at least equal to that of a man walking on foot. The satisfactory speed can be assessed by averaging between two locations taking into account the starting and stopping times and determining to adapt to the least alert operators.

In general, the invention makes it possible to significantly reduce the overall time required for each operator to prepare a command. The reduction can go up to 10%, or even 15% of this overall duration, for warehouses that are supposed to be built according to the modern rules of ergonomics and logistics. Of course, it is also related to other factors, for example to the distribution of items in the different storage locations and the disposition of these in relation to each other.

According to another characteristic of the invention, the orders by which the operator controls the movements of the handling machine inside the warehouse, without climbing into the driving position, are given by the operator and transmitted to the vehicle by remote control in voice form. In this way, the development of a movement order by the order picking operator is simplified and faster. This results in a further reduction in the total duration of the order preparation operation. In addition, the order picking operator has no manipulation of remote control devices to achieve and can, for example, wear protective gloves at all times.

According to yet another characteristic of the invention, said road orders determining the movements of the handling machine result at least in part by a number of elementary steps corresponding to the distance separating the location served and the following location to serve.

In some cases of implementation of the invention, it is added to an order of this kind, the possibility of a direction order, also given remotely by the operator, by remote control, to guide the machine to the next location.

In others, the journeys of the machine are imposed, such as what can be encountered when it is a trolley guided or otherwise self-guided along a circuit along a queue of storage locations. The movement of the handling machine from the location served to the location to be served is then advantageously controlled remotely by means of a single instruction, boiling down to a start-up order (or starting order, in general forward) associated with a number of elementary steps defining the length of the path to travel. In this case, the handling machine stops automatically at the next location without receiving a specific stop order.

As a variant, mainly, although not exclusively, in all cases where the guidance of the handling equipment in the warehouse is automated, for example when the handling equipment is wire-guided, the order can also, according to another embodiment of implementation. advantageous of the invention, be given by transmission of the address of the next location to serve the handling equipment. This procedure makes it possible to simplify the task of the order picker and to ensure precise positioning of the handling machine in front of the next location to be served.

According to yet another characteristic of the invention, which it is advantageous to apply in combination with one or more of the previous ones, the list of articles is transmitted in voice form to the order picker. This transmission, which is preferably during the movement of the handling machine, avoids the manipulation of lists written by the order picker, the only operation to be performed is the loading of articles on the handling machine.

The invention also relates to an order preparation installation comprising any means useful for implementing the method defined above by its main characteristics.

In its preferred embodiments, the invention provides for providing each operator working in the preparation of commands in the installation of a portable microprocessor device for the transmission of road commands which includes a speech recognition and speech synthesis device and which is operatively connected to a headset support of one or two earphones and microphone also worn by the operator. It also plans to equip each handling machine with a servomechanism, which is operative in a microprocessor control assembly of the installation comprising a speech module with a voice recognition device for receiving route orders and operating in functional link with a portable device assigned to the operator having to collect the items of a command being prepared on the corresponding machine to interpret the orders received in the engine control commands of the machine.

In practice, there are always several operators working simultaneously in the installation with different respective machines, and the different portable devices for issuing road orders are connected to the machines which are respectively associated with them by a wireless communication network. In practice also, the voice module which ensures the transformation of the signals between the orders in voice form and the transmission to the servomechanisms is then common to all the handling equipment of the installation, in connection with the corresponding portable devices used by the operators.

Advantageously, the installation comprises a central station or other set of command management which is connected to the portable devices of the operators by the wireless communication network, so as to transmit to each operator, also by this network, including references, location , number and any other information concerning each line of a list of items to collect for a given order, and preferably as the movements of the operator and his machine along the path of the corresponding locations. It is understood that in such a case, each operator can "dialogue", in hands-free, with his handling machine and the central control station when it sends him, in voice form, indications as for example the type and number of items to be loaded according to the list of the order being prepared.

According to another characteristic of the invention, each handling machine comprises a device for defining the distance to be traveled by a number of elementary steps in a given direction, which can be expressed alternatively by a count of incremental steps of displacement in units of distance, for example involving a coding wheel, a wheel or other device for counting revolutions or fractions of a revolution of a rotary shaft, or by an equivalent time delay system. Such a counting device is used according to the invention to automatically control the stopping of the handling machine when it has arrived at the next location to be served, which avoids the operator having to monitor the gear being moved to command its stop.

The interest of these latter provisions is not limited to the case of application of the invention involving orders given by the voice. They are also useful in many other situations, where, in accordance with the invention, each operator, in association with his machine, is equipped with a remote control device adapted to the implementation of the invention. invention, which preferably comprises simplified start control members and the direction taken by the machine at least at the start, plus possibly the control means of an emergency stop. In any case, the transmission of the route orders between the order-picking operator and the handling machine may advantageously be carried out by infrared radiation or by radio.

• la figure 1 illustre les déplacements réalisés par l'opérateur préparateur de commandes dans la procédure connue de préparation de commandes dans une installation suivant l'art antérieur à la présente invention ;
• la figure 2 illustre les déplacements de l'opérateur dans le cas du procédé selon l'invention ;
• la figure 3 est une représentation schématique d'une installation suivant l'invention pour la mise en oeuvre d'un tel procédé.

The invention will now be more fully described in the context of preferred features and their advantages, with reference to the figures of the accompanying drawings which illustrate them and in which:

• FIG. 1 illustrates the movements made by the order-picking operator in the known procedure of FIG. preparation of orders in an installation according to the prior art to the present invention;
• FIG. 2 illustrates the movements of the operator in the case of the method according to the invention;
• Figure 3 is a schematic representation of an installation according to the invention for the implementation of such a method.

We see in Figure 1 a part of a warehouse that has storage locations 1 to 4 which are here supposed to be aligned. Each location 1 to 4 comprises pallets 5 on which are stored articles or products to be distributed.

These items are taken from the respective storage locations based on an order list that indicates the nature and number of items to be collected for each particular order. At each of the storage locations that constitutes a location to serve, on the grounds that it contains the articles that correspond to the references of at least one article of said list, the corresponding item or articles are handled by an order-picking operator 6. This The operator takes them from the location and carries them in a container, for example by loading them on a pallet 7 towed by a motorized handling vehicle 8, such as an electric motor cart provided with forks adapted to the transport of pallets and guided parallel to the row of aligned locations. The different items of the order list are thus collected from successively served locations.

The movement of the handling device 8 between two locations, for example between a location 1 already served and a location following 4 to be served is provided by the order picking operator 6. When the latter does not have the means of l the invention, he climbs on the handling machine 8 and goes to the driving position 9 to control the movement of the handling machine 8 to the new location where he has to take other items for the same order. His various movements for this purpose are schematized by arrows on the Figure 1. When the operator 6 arrives at the storage location 1, he descends from the driving position of the machine 8 (arrow 11), it goes to the storage location (arrow 12), it samples one or more items and brings them back to the pallet 7 towed by the machine to deposit them (arrow 13). Then, the operator 6 moves to the driving position 9 (arrow 14) and it goes back on the machine (arrow 15). He then drives the latter to the next location to be served, for example location 4, where the same movements occur for the loading of the items stored in this location 4.

In accordance with the present invention, as illustrated in FIG. 2, the operator 6 does not drive the handling machine 8 himself, but he controls his movements at a distance by sending him road commands that he issues. by means of a remote control system with wireless transmission. Thus, when the loading operation from a given location 1 is completed, the operator 6 no longer has to climb on the handling machine 8. It controls it by the wireless transmission network, and in the same time, he moves to the same new location to serve 4, but on foot (arrow 17). Moreover, when it leaves the site already served 1, it leaves from the position in which it deposited the last article to load of this site, and it is to go directly to the following location to serve and to reach it in the adapted position ready to take a first item of the order stored in this location (arrow 16 for the storage location 1). This displacement is illustrated as being unique in considering that the operator only needs a trip between the location and the machine to transport items that fall under that location on the order list to be satisfied, but it is Clear that the comparison with Figure 1 would be valid otherwise, if the number and nature of items require multiple trips and returns between location and handling equipment.

In a complete installation according to the invention, there are generally several operators having to prepare different commands, by going one after another the same rows of locations, each with a handling gear assigned to it.

According to one embodiment of such an installation, which does not involve speech control and therefore does not require a voice recognition device, each of the operators wears on it, attached to its clothing, for example to the belt or in a shoulder belt, a remote control device with signal transmission by radio or infrared which enables it to send the road commands specifically to its vehicle and which is advantageously made in the form of a handle with organs such as push buttons for launch the various orders by manual mechanical action of the operator. According to a preferred embodiment, this apparatus is designed on the one hand to operate in negative safety with respect to the orders of movement of the machine, that is to say that each member returns to the rest position from then on. it is no longer actuated by the operator, on the other hand for said organs are protected behind the handle so as not to trigger unexpectedly in case of shock or fall for example.

More specifically, the remote control device may in particular comprise, under a protective handle that the operator takes in the palm of the hand palm, two symmetrical joysticks to operate by the fingers by closing the hand on it. Each lever is pushed in this way against a spring that tends to recall elastically in its initial rest position, where it is inactive. One is used to issue an order of advance, leading for example, to control, by the power of its engine, alternately the start and stop of the machine. The other serves symmetrically to roll back the craft. Alternatively, this second handle can be designed to determine a stop by brake effect and / or locking of the controls in the inactive position. And even in this case, the command issuing an order in advance is possibly doubled by a command initiating a back order. Moreover, the handle itself serves as a remote control button in orientation. For this purpose it is planned to mount it rotatively on the housing of the apparatus in such a way that its rotation to the right or to the left commands a corresponding change of direction of the machine.

According to a preferred embodiment of such a portable remote control device equipping each operator of the installation according to the invention, the same so-called negative security is provided for the body controlling the changes of direction of the machine and for the the drive control knobs. By this is meant that a manual action must be exerted permanently on the controller, otherwise it becomes inactive and stops transmitting the triggered order. Thus, on such a device, it is advantageously provided that the handle constituting the operating button remote from the machine in orientation requires to be extracted from the housing of the apparatus by a specific action of the operator so that he it can rotate it. When the operator pulls on the handle, against spring means that tend to elastically return it to its inactive position where it is fixed in rotation in the housing, it also gives him access to the drive control maneuvers in the direction of advance and recoil. The machine returns to stop when the pressure on these joysticks is released. The body that controls the triggering of an emergency stop procedure is constituted by the handle itself. Either from the will of the operator, or in the event of a fall or other shock, the pressure exerted on the handle triggers its movement in a position pressed into the housing which determines the locking of the device and all the controls become inactive. To release the handle from this locking position and return it to the initial rest position, the operator must apply a special procedure, involving the exercise of a relatively large effort or, for example, that of a pressure or traction doubled with a rotation.

In other embodiments of the invention, a more conventional remote control unit may be used, comprising control keys for advance, stop and / or back, directional keys and keys. a numeric or alphanumeric keypad, the latter being able to be used, as the case may be, to enter a distance to be traveled by the machine following an order of starting, for example by indicating a number of basic movement steps, or to enter an address code characteristic of the next location to serve which the machine must go.

FIG. 3 illustrates the design of an installation according to the invention for the implementation of the method which has just been described by placing itself in a particularly elaborate embodiment where the information and instructions received or issued by the operator are in the form of verbal words, thus more generally in vocal form.

This diagram shows handling equipment 8 used to collect and transport the different items of each order on their respective pallets 7. The driving position 9 of each is associated with a servomechanism 21 which determines its movement. The operators in charge of the different gears each carry a headphone 22 for sound transmission and reception, comprising a microphone and at least one earphone, if not two. In addition, they carry, for example attached to their belt, a portable microprocessor device, so in practice a microcomputer 23, which comprises a device for synthesis and voice recognition, or better speech. The characteristic of such a device, in a manner known per se, is to transform data from computer files into sounds understandable by the operator who hears them and, conversely, to decode the spoken or verbal responses of the operator to transcribe them into digital data that can be acquired and processed by the computer system. It has been schematically shown in the figure that on each operator, this device 23 is operatively connected to the headset 22, more precisely to his or her headphones in reception at the hearing and its microphone in transmission by voice or speech.

The transmission of data from or to portable microcomputers 23 or servomechanisms 21 takes place by way of a wireless signal transmission network 24, operating for example over the air, and passing through a voice module 25 that without seeing any limitation, it is illustrated here as being integrated in a fixed central station of the warehouse. This voice module is essentially constituted by the circuits of a device for recognizing audible sounds or speech used for the transformation of the road commands issued by an operator to his craft. However, it is advantageous that it also acts as a voice synthesizer capable of transmitting information to be heard by the operator, for example to make him know in words the next step of his order list.

A central warehouse management station 26, which includes in particular warehouse management software and command management software, is connected in data signal transmission to an interface module 27 which is connected to the voice module 25. Finally, an address management module 28 is connected on the one hand to the interface module 27 and, on the other hand, to the voice module 25. Naturally, the automated management of the installation can be provided by a set of hardware and software variously distributed in the warehouse rather than what has been considered here as a single central station.

The installation thus constituted allows a complete automatic processing of the order picking. The central management station 26 comprises a command management software which generates, in the form of digital signals, instructions corresponding to each command list (nature and number of items) and sends them via the interface module 27. , the voice module 25. The latter transforms these instructions received in digital form into voice instructions that it transmits in the form of audio signals expressing verbal words (for example "take three reference articles X"), which are sent into the headset of the operator concerned.

The operator performs the requested operation, then speaking in his microphone, so also in voice form, it sends on the network information indicating that the requested operation has been performed. This information is transmitted to the management software commands from the central station 26, which provides information indicating the references of the next location to be served, with the number of items to be taken. This information is transmitted to the voice module 25, which sends it in voice form to the concerned order-picking operator, who then utters in speech a voice-expressing voice command in a small number of representative terms of instructions. coded displacement. This information is transmitted by the portable device 23 and the voice module 25 to the servomechanism 21, which decodes the order and causes it to be executed by the handling machine 8 corresponding to the operator order picker concerned.

The route orders sent verbally by each order-picking operator 6 are in the form of terms codified in a specific manner so that they are few in number. They are for example five in number, namely; "forward", "backward", "right", "left" and "off". This last order is sent when the handling machine 8 is at the next location to serve.

To simplify the maneuver, and to prevent the operator 6 from having to issue a specific stop order when the machine arrives at the next location to be served, the route order may comprise a departure instruction setting out route the engine of the craft and a number of elementary steps to travel in a predetermined direction until the stop of the craft occurs automatically. For this purpose, each handling machine 8 may include in particular a device for counting incremental steps, constituted for example by a wheel 29 (FIG. 3) which operates as a counting of turns or fractions of a turn corresponding to the length of the steps and which controls the stop of the handling machine 8 when the number of ordered elementary steps has been reached.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, which will often prove to be more advantageous, a similar order may result in a delay controlling the stopping of the machine after a determined engine time which is adjustable according to the length of the journey to go. This path length is for example that the operator can appreciate visually, without the need for a measuring instrument. It can also be a distance that has been recorded among the basic parameters of the installation beyond the operator's prerogatives.

According to another embodiment of the invention, particularly applicable when the handling equipment 8 are automatically guided in the warehouse, for example by means of an overhead or ground wire guidance installation, the The order issued by the order-picking operator 6 to his handling machine comprises only one instruction, which is expressed in words advantageously by a simple term, such as a number or a list of figures, namely in particular a address of the new location to be served. In this case, on the order thus given by the operator when he has finished loading from a location said already served, the automatic guidance system brings his handling machine to the following location to serve without further intervention.

In the installation illustrated in Figure 3, it is expected that the address of the new location to be served is provided by the address management module 28, which determines it from information it receives from the central station 26 The signals expressing this address in digital form are sent to the voice module 25 which transforms them to translate it in voice form and transmit it specifically to the operator concerned, who receives it by his portable device 23 and hears it by 22. It is then this operator who determines the instructions or orders that he sends to his vehicle, in particular by operating the control devices that are made available for that purpose at a freely chosen time. by him.

By the detailed description which has just been explained, it can be seen that the invention makes it possible to reduce the total duration of the preparation of an order very considerably, since the order-picking operator has means enabling him to order distance movements of the machine assigned to him where he collects all the items of the order. Moreover, in the case where the information corresponding to the articles to be loaded reaches him in voice form, he no longer has to consult an order list on a sheet or a screen. He can devote all his attention to the selection and loading of articles with a very low risk of error. When he himself sends orders to his machine in voice form, he can work permanently with protective gloves to manipulate these items to pass from the storage location from which it takes them to the container of the machine in which he deposits them.

Claims (13)

1. Method for preparation of orders constituted by articles to be collected from storage locations in a depot by an order-preparation operator who assembles the orders in a container driven by a motorised handling vehicle (8) which is used to transport the orders between successive locations served, characterised in that the articles to be assembled which constitute an order being prepared are selected by the said operator according to a predetermined list which is transmitted in vocal form, to the operator, for each subsequent location to be served, from a central order control unit in the depot, and in that the displacements of the handling vehicle (1, 4) are controlled by routing instructions which are at least partly freely determined by the order-preparation operator (6), which are emitted by a portable device which is specific to the said operator, and which are transmitted to the handling vehicle (8) by means of a wireless telecommunications network whilst the operator is going on foot from each location already served to the following location to be served.
2. Method according to claim 1, characterised in that the transmission in vocal form of the list of articles to the operator takes place during the displacement of the handling vehicle from the location already served to the following location to be served.
3. Method according to claim 1 or claim 2, characterised in that the routing instructions are emitted by the operator (6) in vocal form, and are transmitted transformed into digital control signals in order to be received and interpreted by the handling vehicle (8), the transmission advantageously taking place by wireless means or by infrared radiation.
4. Method for preparation of orders constituted by articles to be collected from storage locations in a depot by an order-preparation operator who assembles the orders in a container driven by a motorised handling vehicle (8) which is used to transport the orders between successive locations served, characterised in that the displacements of the handling vehicle (1, 4) are controlled by routing instructions which are at least partly freely determined by the order-preparation operator (6), which are emitted by the said operator in vocal form, and which are transformed into digital control signals in order to be received and interpreted by the handling vehicle (8), and are transmitted from a device which is specific to the said operator to the handling vehicle (8) by means of a wireless telecommunications network whilst the operator is going on foot from each location already served to the following location to be served.
5. Method according to claim 4, characterised in that the routing instructions are emitted by the operator (6) in verbal form.
6. Method according to claim 5, characterised in that the said articles to be assembled which constitute an order being prepared are selected by the said operator according to a predetermined list, which is transmitted in vocal form to the operator, for each subsequent location to be served, from a central unit or an equivalent assembly for control of orders in the depot, preferably whilst the operating is going on foot from the location already served to the following location to be served.
7. Method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the said routing instructions comprise a vehicle starting order for displacement consisting of a predetermined number of elementary steps, corresponding to the distance which separates a location already served (1) from a subsequent location to be served (4), characterised also in that the order-preparation operator also determines a steering order to be imparted to the said vehicle when starting takes place.
8. Method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the said routing instructions comprise designation of the address of the following location to be served (4).
9. Method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that in a depot in which different handling vehicles are moving, each of which is controlled by a different operator, the speed of displacement of the said vehicles from one storage location to another is regulated such as to be at least equal to that of a man going on foot.
10. Installation for preparation of orders in a depot where the articles for each order being prepared are collected by an operator who is in charge of the said order in respective locations in the depot (1-4), and are gathered together in a container which is driven by a motorised handling vehicle which is used to transport the orders through the depot, and wherein each order-preparation operator has a portable microprocessor device (23) which is specific to him and is connected to a wireless telecommunications network, characterised in that each operator's portable device (23) is associated with a servo-mechanism (21) with which the handling vehicle allocated to the said operator is equipped, thus, at the starting point for each location served, allowing the operator to give his vehicle routing instructions which he determines at least partly freely, and the emission of which he controls by means of the said portable device, in order to transmit the instructions by means of the said wireless telecommunications network to the said vehicle in order to control the displacement of the latter to the following location to be served, the said servo-mechanism being able to interpret the said orders which it receives, and in that the installation comprises a central order control unit (26) which is also connected functionally to the portable devices (23) by the said wireless communications network (24), as well as a device for vocal synthesis and recognition, for receipt in verbal form by each operator of control list information for each location to be served and/or emission in verbal form of the said routing instructions.
11. Installation according to claim 10, characterised in that, in a protective handle which the operator holds in the hollow of his palm, each portable operator device comprises two symmetrical levers to be activated by the fingers, by closing the hand onto them, in order to thrust each lever against a return spring, i.e. one lever to launch a starting order which leads to control of the starting or stopping of the vehicle, and the other lever to give rise to stopping by the effect of braking and/or locking of the commands in an inactive position, the handle itself acting as a remote orientation manoeuvring knob, the said handle being fitted such as to rotate on the housing of the device such that its rotation to the right or to the left gives rise to a corresponding change in orientation of the vehicle.
12. Installation according to claim 11, characterised in that the said handle constitutes the orientation manoeuvring knob and in that it gives rise to triggering of an emergency stop procedure in a position of locking of the commands, wherein it is pushed into the said housing.
13. Installation according to claims 10, 11 or 12, characterised in that each handling vehicle (8) is provided with a device for counting of elementary displacement steps (29), such as a coding wheel or an equivalent timing device, the said counting device being placed under the control of the portable device of the corresponding operator.

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